US Army pilot sold LSD hundreds of times on dark web, prosecutors allege

US federal prosecutors allege a Black Hawk pilot collected nearly US$122,000 ($204,220) in LSD proceeds over 11 months. Photo / AFP

• A US Army helicopter pilot argued he had a religious right to sell LSD on the dark web.
• A judge rejected Kyle Norton Riester’s claim, stating public health and safety outweighed his religious defence.
• Riester remains on active duty but faces dishonourable discharge and potential drug distribution charges.

A US Army helicopter pilot who federal prosecutors say shipped nearly 1800 orders of LSD to buyers on the “dark web” has argued in court that he has a religious right to sell the drug, deploying an unconventional legal strategy in an attempt to stave off his indictment.

Kyle Norton Riester, a first lieutenant on active duty with the 12th Aviation Battalion at Fort Belvoir, Virginia, argued in legal papers this month that “the Divine guidance and instruction he had received while communing with LSD” drove him to sell the hallucinogenic drug on dark-web marketplaces during the coronavirus pandemic.

“He felt compelled to dispense to co-religionists,” an attorney for Riester, George G. Lake, argued at a hearing in US District Court in Alexandria, Virginia. “His religion still compels him,” Lake said on Wednesday (local time) as Riester nodded along.

Federal prosecutors allege the Black Hawk pilot, who has a security clearance, collected nearly US$122,000 ($204,220) in LSD proceeds over 11 months. He shipped at least 1797 orders from 2022 to 2024, they said, to buyers including a 15-year-old and an undercover law enforcement officer. Riester was indicted last year in a separate money-laundering case in Texas.

Details of a drug-trafficking investigation usually would not be made public before an indictment, but Riester filed a civil lawsuit claiming his LSD sales were a sincere religious exercise protected under the Religious Freedom Restoration Act of 1993. A judge on Wednesday rejected those arguments, clearing a path for prosecutors to file drug-distribution charges.

Judge Anthony J. Trenga denied a request for a preliminary injunction to bar Riester’s prosecution on religious grounds, finding that the Government has a public health and safety interest in preventing the sale of controlled dangerous substances. Assuming Riester’s spiritual beliefs were sincere, Trenga said, “it’s far from clear that sincere religious belief would extend to the indiscriminate selling of LSD on the dark web”.

Trenga had already denied two previous requests to stop the prosecution, finding that “Riester’s admitted selling of LSD on the dark web cannot likely be deemed sufficiently narrow and restrictive to ensure that only individuals of Riester’s same religion, rather than recreational users of LSD, were accessing the drug”.

Courts have found that the use of ayahuasca, peyote, marijuana or other psychoactive drugs in some cases is protected as a religious exercise when the trappings and rituals of organised worship are observed. The US attorney’s office for the Eastern District of Virginia said in a court filing that Riester “did not sell LSD in the context of a religious gathering or ritual, or to people with whom he shared spiritual experiences; he sold LSD on the dark web, a forum designed to ensure the anonymity of its users”.

“He sold LSD on the dark web to anyone who was willing to pay,” Assistant US Attorney Kirstin O’Connor said at the hearing.

Riester remained on active-duty status after admitting in court documents that he consumed and sold LSD, and continued to draw a paycheck, his attorney said. He was in dishonourable discharge proceedings and was granted pretrial release in the Texas money-laundering case, Lake said.

An Army spokesperson told the Washington Post Riester’s discharge was pending and that he had been reassigned to administrative duties and “does not have access to classified material”.

The US attorney’s office declined to comment on the looming indictment. The prosecutor handling Riester’s criminal case sat in the courtroom gallery for the hearing.

Riester spent months collaborating with law enforcement officials after the FBI and other agencies searched his Springfield, Virginia, apartment in August. He was given an April 4 deadline to take a plea deal that could have landed him in prison for years, court records show. The arrangement would have required Riester to plead guilty to one count of conspiracy to distribute LSD and one count of LSD distribution. Lake declined to comment after this week’s hearing.

Riester allegedly used the screen name “FiveEyeGuys” on one dark-web marketplace called Abacus, court records show. It’s unclear whether that was a reference to the Five Eyes, an intelligence-sharing alliance between Australia, Britain, Canada, New Zealand and the United States.

Also unclear is how Riester managed to hide his LSD religion, sales and income from his wife, a Black Hawk helicopter pilot in the same battalion who “had no knowledge of and/or association with plaintiff’s LSD-related religious activities,” according to Riester’s sworn statements in his lawsuit. He denied flying helicopters while under the influence of LSD and acknowledged that his military service contract did not allow him to use controlled substances while on active duty.

Riester claimed his prosecution could endanger US national security, stating in a public court filing that he had “provided copious amounts of assistance to the FBI and Secret Service in their attempts to arrest and prosecute extremely dangerous and violent international Bitcoin, human, and fentanyl traffickers”.

He also believes bitcoin is sacred because of “the autonomy it gives visionary religious practitioners, such as himself” to facilitate the distribution of the “Holy Sacrament” (LSD) to his spiritual fellows, Riester’s attorneys said in a legal filing. His religion was not named in court documents or at the hearing, but the attorneys said Riester had discussed his belief system at length in Substack posts and podcasts over the years.

In the money-laundering case, US officials alleged Riester and unidentified co-conspirators used a spoof email address to fraudulently obtain a US$285,000 wire transfer destined for a British company. Riester then converted the funds into cryptocurrency, according to the pending indictment in the Southern District of Texas. He has pleaded not guilty to those charges; that trial is scheduled to begin in July.